An 11-year-old has shocked an audience of security experts by casually hacking into their Bluetooth devices to control his robotic teddy bear.

“From airplanes to automobiles, from smartphones to smart homes, anything or any toy can be part of the Internet of Things (IoT),” he told the audience of the World Forum in The Hague.

“Most internet-connected things have a Bluetooth functionality … I basically showed how I could connect to it, and send commands to it, by recording audio and playing the light,” he told AFP.

“IoT home appliances, things that can be used in our everyday lives, our cars, lights refrigerators, everything like this that is connected can be used and weaponised to spy on us or harm us.”

Reuben, who when he was just 8 delivered the closing keynote address at the 2014 Houston Security Conference, later tweeted that his mission was to warn people how Internet of Things devices could easily be hacked: It was fun but I hope people did not miss the message — Secure IoT before the Internet of Toys becomes the Internet of Threats :-) https://t.co/m09QFli4tp — Reuben Paul (@RAPst4r) May 16, 2017